Although Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) uses some of the most sophisticated technologies in the world to test aerospace systems before flight, it's been using one system for 24 years that's about as simple as instant mashed potatoes and Stovetop Stuffing.

"It's about as low-tech as you can get," said Randal Watt, a project manager at the Arnold Air Force Base, Tenn., test center's Bird Impact Test Facility. "Most people who tour AEDC are surprised we haven't developed a more sophisticated test technique. But it's really common sense, a very simple thing. If you are trying to simulate a bird hitting the windshield of an aircraft, the easiest and best way to do it is to catch a bird, accelerate it to the desired speed, and have an aircraft windshield in its path."

I had to post this old news about the chicken gun at Arnold AFB...

now to find video...

Something to crow about: Rooster Booster proves old-fashioned ingenuity needn't be high-tech Combat Edge - Find Articles

Moon's
Azimuth Altitude
h m o o
Moonrise 2007 Aug 27 19:02 105.8 ----
Moon enters penumbra 2007 Aug 28 02:52.2 220.3 33.7
Moon enters umbra 2007 Aug 28 03:50.9 233.4 25.4
Moon enters totality 2007 Aug 28 04:52.0 244.6 15.2
Middle of eclipse 2007 Aug 28 05:37.3 251.8 7.1
Moonset 2007 Aug 28 06:19 257.9 ----

Here are the give and take a few time(s) for middle TN....

Click the link to find out times for your location....

Lunar Eclipse Computer

Most people appreciate lunar eclipses for their silent midnight beauty. NASA astronomer Bill Cooke is different: he loves the explosions.

On Tuesday morning, Aug. 28th, Earth's shadow will settle across the Moon for a 90-minute total eclipse: full story. In the midst of the lunar darkness, Cooke hopes to record some flashes of light--explosions caused by meteoroids crashing into the Moon and blasting themselves to smithereens.

rock out... I wish I had my huge zoom lens here...

NASA - Exploding Lunar Eclipse

See where the best view is at...

Total Lunar Eclipse Time Table

On Tuesday, Aug. 28th, the full Moon will enter Earth's shadow for a 90-minute total eclipse. People on the Pacific side of Earth will have the best view as the Moon turns a dreamy shade of
sunset red.

Favored areas include the Americas (especially western North
America), Hawaii, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, east Asia and Antarctica.

The show begins Tuesday morning around 2 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (0900-UT).

Although the dominant color of a lunar eclipse is red, sometimes another hue appears--turquoise. Earth's shadow has a turquoise-colored fringe caused by our planet's ozone layer, and this can be seen for a few beautiful moments at the onset of totality.

Today's edition of spaceweather.com shows you what the turquoise fringe looks like and explains how to catch it.
Also, amateur astronomers are encouraged to assist NASA during the eclipse by scanning the darkened Moon for explosions caused by Helion meteoroid impacts. Typical flashes reach 6th magnitude--easy targets for mid-sized backyard telescopes equipped with digital video cameras. The eclipse is a great time to look for these "lunar meteors."

Observing tips and more information are available at http://spaceweather.com.

Full coverage of the eclipse, including maps, animations, timetables and links to live webcasts, begins now on http://spaceweather.com .

Total Lunar Eclipse

Agriculture was taking root in South America almost as early as the first farmers were breaking ground in the Middle East, new research indicates. Evidence that squash was being grown nearly 10,000 years ago, in what is now Peru, is reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

Squash Cultivated 10,000 Years Ago

A very unusual ink-jet printer cartridge, containing explosive ink, has been patented by Qinetiq, the commercial spin-off of the British Ministry of Defence.

The ink is a mixture of very fine aluminium particles, each 1 micrometre in diameter, particles of copper oxide 5 micrometres wide, epoxy varnish and alcohol. The ink is stable in liquid form, making it safe to print onto conventional paper, but forms an explosive fuse once dry.

An engineer can easily sketch out a printable fuse using computer imaging software, modifying the delay in milliseconds by changing the length, thickness and pattern of the line on the paper.

The ink can then be printed between a small strip of metal and a larger patch of explosive ink. Feeding a current through the metal strip makes it hot enough to ignite the fuse, which burns until it reaches the explosive patch. This explosion can then trigger the detonation of a much larger amount of explosives.

Qinetiq suggests printed fuses could be used for precisely controlling fireworks, triggering vehicle air bags or for conventional munitions. Ganging hundreds or thousands of fuses together could even make a miniature rocket engine capable of precisely adjusting the orbital position of a spacecraft, the company says.

Exploding ink

Researchers, including a BYU scientist, believe they have found a new compound that could finally kill the HIV/AIDS virus, not just slow it down as current treatments do.
And, unlike the expensive, drug cocktails 25 years of research have produced for those with the deadly virus, the compound invented by Paul D. Savage of Brigham Young University appears to hunt down and kill HIV.
Although so far limited to early test tube studies, CSA-54, one of a family of compounds called Ceragenins (or CSAs), mimics the disease-fighting characteristics of anti-microbial and anti-viral agents produced naturally by a healthy human immune system.
Under a study sponsored by Ceragenix Pharmaceuticals, Savage and his colleagues developed and synthesized the compound for Vanderbilt University's School of Medicine. In his Nashville, Tenn., laboratories, Derya Unutmaz, an associate professor of Microbiology and Immunology, tested several CSAs for their ability to kill HIV.
While issuing a cautious caveat about his early results, Unutmaz acknowledged Monday that CSAs could be the breakthrough HIV/AIDS researchers have sought for so long.
"We received these agents [from BYU] in early October and our initial results began to culminate by November 2005. We have since reproduced all our results many times," he said. "We have some preliminary but very exciting results [but] we would like to formally show this before making any claims that would cause unwanted hype."
What studies to date show is a compound that attacks HIV at its molecular membrane level, disrupting the virus from interacting with their primary targets, the "T-helper" class white blood cells that comprise and direct the human immune system. Further, CSAs appear to be deadly to all known strains of HIV.

Have they have found a new compound that could finally kill the HIV/AIDS?

"I hope the successful operation will help other people like me to live again," said Isabelle Dinoire, 38, who was disfigured when she was attacked by her pet Labrador retriever.

"I now have a face like everyone else," she told reporters Monday at the hospital in Amiens in northern France where the surgery was performed. "A door to the future is opening."

Her speech was heavily slurred and hard to understand, and she appeared to have difficulty moving or closing her mouth.

But the divorced mother of two teenage daughters told how a dog bite left her disfigured, and she thanked the family of the donor who gave her new lips, a chin and nose.

Fine scar lines could be seen from her nose over her cheekbones down to her jaw where the tissue was attached in a 15-hour operation on November 27.

"I can open my mouth and eat. I feel my lips, my nose and my mouth," she said.

During the news conference, while one of her surgeons was speaking, she lifted a cup to her lips and appeared to drink.

"I want to resume a normal life," Dinoire said. "I pay homage to the donor's family. ... My operation could help others to live again."

Face patient wants 'normal life'

There was a time when the main topic of conversation at the farmers' favorite breakfast or lunch place was the weather, and, if everyone was agreeable with the topic, the current state of government affairs. Now, it's all about fuel costs And it's certainly not as if there is little else of importance occurring in agriculture. In the past few months alone, the United States' chief negotiator in World Trade Organization talks has suggested eliminating all U.S. farm subsidies.
<A TARGET="_blank" HREF="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v5|3383|3|0|%2a|l%3B26870844%3B0-0%3B0%3B12607213%3B2928-180|150%3B14727744|14745640|1%3B%3B%7Efdr%3D26919634%3B0-0%3B0%3B6900223%3B2928-180|150%3B14741423|14759319|1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://www.sequence-herbicide.com"><IMG SRC="http://m.2mdn.net/967750/sequence_patches_180x150.gif" BORDER=0></A>

And, closer to home, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns has been crisscrossing the country, conducting a number of farm bill “listening” sessions. How much listening is actually going on at these sessions is debatable, as the Secretary always reveals in his closing statement that the die pretty much is already cast as far as how world trade will dictate the direction of the next farm bill.

But these are things that will affect farmers in the future, although the not-too-distant future. Fuel bills are in the here and now — they're in the hands of growers, they have to be paid, and they're shockingly high. What's more, we're being told that fuel costs will only get higher, and that there's no relief in sight.

So it's time we began taking a serious look at long-term solutions to the current fuel crisis, and that was part of the purpose of the recent Alabama Agriculture Energy Conference, held at Auburn University.

The message brought by Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks was that the solutions to our fuel problems are readily available — it's just a matter of taking advantage of them. Alabama, he said, is a potential treasure trove of biofuels, and it's past time for the state's economy — particularly the farm sector — started profiting from them.

“The technology is there,” says Sparks. “But there has got to be a commitment by farmers, the government and consumers for all of this to work.”

Education, he adds, is key to the success of biofuels. Farmers need to know what's available, where the opportunities lie, and what's still needed.

One thing that is not lacking, however, are the raw materials, with many of the products commonly used to produce biofuels already being grown in abundance throughout Alabama.

For example, in the course of producing 1 billion chickens each year, the state's poultry farmers also generate an enormous supply of poultry waste, which many biofuel experts believe could ultimately serve as a cheap, widely available biofuel source.

Alabama also is well known for its prolific produc... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Change of mindset necessary for biofuels to reach potential